A Brilliant Solution by Carol Berkin

Author:Carol Berkin [Berkin, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Chapter Eight

The Battle for Ratification

"The Constitution is now before the Judgment Seat"

ON SEPTEMBER 19 THE delegates began their exodus from boardinghouses and the homes of friends. Most were headed home; some were bound for New York City, to take their long-vacant seats in the Confederation Congress. A few, like the irrepressible Gouverneur Morris, were already making plans to flee political life for what they considered a much-deserved vacation. Most of the delegates, however, were steeling themselves for the next phase of the constitutional struggle: ratification of "the plan" by their home states. Unless nine states approved the Constitution, the long months of debate, argument, negotiation, and compromise would prove futile, and the crisis brought on by an incompetent government would continue. Could they rally the support they needed? No one knew.

At one o'clock that afternoon, General Washington, Bob Morris, and Gouverneur Morris dined together for the last time. Then the three men rode to Gray's Ferry on the Schuylkill River. Here, on the riverbanks, they parted—Washington turning south toward his beloved Mount Vernon, Robert Morris returning to his elegant home in Philadelphia, and the feisty Gouverneur Morris heading toward his lavish Morrisania estate. Their plans for the future were as different as their personalities: Washington hoped to retire from public life; Robert Morris hoped to save his precarious fortune; and the peg legged Gouverneur Morris hoped to travel abroad in search of cultural stimulation and, with luck, new amorous encounters.

That same day George Mason could also been seen making his way home to his Virginia plantation at Gunston Hall. Mason remained firm in his resolve to oppose the Constitution, although he knew he would pay a high price for his apostasy. His "Objections to the Constitution," first scribbled on the back of his copy of the plan, was already circulating in Philadelphia. By October he would send a more polished copy of this critique to Washington, an act that would strain their long-standing friendship to the breaking point. His once intimate friendship with James Madison already seemed beyond repair. Vicious gossip about Mason filled the Philadelphia papers, including unfounded rumors that he had been greeted as a traitor in his native state. The mayor of Alexandria and a delegation of leading citizens, it was said, had met Mason at the city borders and warned him to leave the city within an hour's time if he valued his life. The story was untrue, but it suggested the bitter divisions between the supporters of the new plan of government and its opponents in the key state of Virginia.

The pugnacious Luther Martin and the irascible Elbridge Gerry were men better suited to the conflict that lay ahead than the mild-mannered Mason. Yet no delegate expected to avoid the battles over ratification soon to take shape. A copy of the Constitution and Gouverneur Morris's brilliantly politic letter were already on their way to the Confederation Congress. Once Congress accepted this report from the Constitutional Convention, state legislatures were expected to call for the election of delegates to special ratifying conventions.

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